There’s nothing like stable or slightly declining fuel prices to induce Metro-amnesia, like the now-forgotten fact that someone bid up the price of a sixteen-year-old 1992 Metro XFi on an Ebay auction to an eye-popping $7,200 back in 2008. Would this one even fetch $720 today? Well, if its owners think oil prices are cyclical, they’ll stash it away until the next price spike, which admittedly might be a bit of a wait.

The Metro XFi surfed the tide and ebb of oil prices from day one, which explains its demise in the oil glut of the mid-90s. And then the Prius took its place as the mileage champ. It’s always a good exercise to be a contrarian, so lets celebrate the current moderate fuel prices with the thriftiest little car sold here during its reign.

The Geo Metro was the All-American version of Suzuki’s Cultus, which first arrived in the US in 1985 as the Chevrolet Sprint.(above).

The second generation version arrived in 1989, and had a number of changes, perhaps the most significant ones being the name, as it was now to be sold under Chevy’s Geo sub-brand, for Japanese cars. Well, Japanese designed, as the Metro was actually built at CAMI, a 50-50 Joint Venture in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. Suzuki’s first big direct entry in NA production was not well timed, as oil prices had been dropping all through the 80s, and except for a brief spike during the Gulf War, resumed their long decline in the 90s.

Needless to say, the regular Metro was thrifty with fuel from the get-go. But to really ace the EPA numbers, something a bit extra was cooked up with the XFi. Or should I say a bit less, as the second compression ring on the pistons was deleted for reduced friction. The cam profile was altered. Engine management jiggered. The final drive lowered (numerically).

The results were eye-popping EPA numbers of 53 city/58 hwy. Well, those were the bad, old, unadjusted numbers; the revised ones are 43/52, with a combined 47 mpg. Which places it (and its immediate predecessor Sprint ER) right behind the gen1 Honda Insight (49/61/53) and the gen3 Prius (51/48/50) in the list of all-time most fuel efficient cars ever sold in the US. In real-world driving, achieving 50 mpg is supposedly pretty easy. But of course, that’s just the jumping off point.

The Metro developed a cult, just like the Prius, for those looking to squeeze the most out of a gallon of gasoline. There’s a large number out there to pick from, so we’ll sample a few. This one has fairly mild body modifications to reduce aerodynamic drag, but a slew of other little mechanical tricks all the way down to the combustion chambers. The result is a consistent 60 mpg in the owner’s commute, but the goal is 65. That’s easier said than done. (Full story here)

Back in 1993 (when fuel prices were spiking, of course), Doug Heffron decided that 56 mpg from his XFi wasn’t enough, and sought 75 mpg. That required a bit more drastic surgery to reduce drag, turning it into a (presumably) 1+1 seater.

Here’s a next-gen Metro with some aero aids. One could spend all night finding these hyper-mile eco-mod Metros on the web. And needless to say, these were pretty much the favorite car for EV conversions. Remember those? A big heavy pack of lead-acid batteries in the back seat that yielded maybe a genuine 25 or 30 mile range,. with a little help from a tail wind. It already seems like so long ago...just be patient guys, in a couple of years all your efforts will be for naught...

As in the current Chevy Spark EV, which costs just $17,495 in California after federal and state tax credits. MPGe? Over 100. Official range is 82 miles; plenty for scooting around town and such. The spiritual successor to the Metro XFi, even if it doesn’t run on spirits. Now if oil were spiking, folks would be fighting over it. But it’s not.

There’s been a lot published over the years telling folks they’re fools to buy one of these when oil prices spike, because they’re miserable to drive, with mediocre performance, safety and other criteria, and that the fuel savings don’t pan out. True enough, but don’t tell that to the Cultus cult.

I’ve never driven the XFi version, but the regular Metro isn’t such a bad drive if you’re the kind of person who values simple, honest, direct, reliable, and cheap transportation. For what they are, they’re very good cars. And caning one can actually be fun. No pretense, no false aspirations, no opera lights and loose-pillow seats.

Probably not the best car for a family, but it probably beats a bike with a Burley kiddie trailer for longer runs.

Of course, there were those that saw a different potential in these, and there’s many different approaches to the subject, this being just one of them. The Suzuki Swift GT, essentially the same car with a 1.3 L four and other mods to enhance it’s performance is another Cultus cult classic.

It’s not a stretch to see the Metro as perhaps the closest thing to a VW Beetle successor. It was pretty much the cheapest way to drive, and easy to turn into all sorts of other things that Suzuki’s engineers never planned for.

Although they did take credit for cutting its top off, the most obvious alteration. But then VW did that too; another point of comparison.

Suzuki did VW one better by stretching the wheelbase and building a surprisingly roomy four/five door version. I always thought that was dumb of VW not to do that, but then they were selling all the two-door Beetles they could build, so why bother.

I’m digressing, but this is what I mean. Since the factory wouldn’t, coach builder Rometsch did, primarily for taxi use. Wonder if anybody used a five-door Metro for a taxi?

The Metro really is like the VW in the way that once you start exploring all of its permutations, it’s like falling down the rabbit hole. Well, I’m going to pull myself back up, and wrap this up. I’m sure you can add plenty more. Just think small.

I remember watching this episode first run, but I never noticed all the Geo’s, maybe its because they were nice and small to fit in the parking garage set they made, I assume it wasn’t a real garage. If I recall they were looking for Kramer’s car, which at the end, turned out to be a run down Fox based LTD?

I remember on the commentary for this episode they discussed how small the set was, and how small their budget was for this episode. This one of the earlier seasons before the show exploded in popularity.

The big Chevy seemed to fit Kramer well, I was never an avid watcher of Seinfeld, but I did watch it enough to pick up on the cars that were used and of course some of the gags. I remember Jerry’s Saab convertible and Costanza’s old mans Granada or Monarch that got trashed at the mall, and of course, the Fleetwood Brougham that belonged to his parents.

Just wondering, are there any A and B segment cars available on the North American car market right now ? With gasoline engines somewhere around 1.0 liter displacement ? We’re drowning in them, both with gasoline and diesel engines as a matter a fact.

On the other hand, nothing new under the sun. Small French and Italian family cars could easily do 40 mpg on average many decades ago.

The tricky thing about the American definitions is that the EPA defines subcompacts, compacts, etc. based on interior volume rather than dimensions. That means a well-packaged car can edge into a bigger class while some large but space-inefficient cars are classed as subcompacts.

The general public’s sense of the distinctions between A, B, and even C-segment cars here is, er, fuzzy, but it’s easier to use those terms just so everyone is talking about the same things…

Johannes Dutch

Posted September 19, 2014 at 10:59 AM

As a matter a fact, the C-segment is often called the “Golf-class” here because the VW Golf has been the undisputed king of this segment for a very long time now. Basically since it was introduced.

The Mk3 MINI is a B-segment car in size and capacity. The new five-door is bigger than a Fiesta or Polo in every dimension but height.

johnh875

Posted September 20, 2014 at 2:59 AM

I saw a photo showing the different generations of Mini, and the new one makes the return model look small! The main difference is the height of the beltline, but it is getting to hte point where it is no different from any other car in the class.

The only 1-liters at the moment are the smart fortwo and Fiesta (where it’s optional), the only 1.2 I can recall is the Chevrolet Spark. We get the Yaris, Honda Fit (Jazz), and Mazda2, with 1.5-liter fours; the Accent with a 1.6; and the petrol 500 with the 1.4-liter, which Americans think is basically a lawnmower engine. The Chevrolet Sonic (Aveo) can also be had with a 1.4 turbo here. Renault departed years ago after selling AMC to Chrysler and Volkswagen has yet to federalize the Polo, much less the Up.

Since the U.S. does not have CO2 requirements (other than the fuel economy standards, which aren’t exactly the same thing), the incentive for the 1-liter turbo engines is not really there the way it is in the E.U. For many Americans, anything smaller than a Mondeo (Ford Fusion here) is still a small car — it hasn’t dawned on a lot of people to look at the dimensions of current C-segment cars — and anything smaller than a Civic is a little-bitty car.

Yes, the little-bitty cars typically come with a 1.0 liter -or smaller- 3 cylinder engine, with our without a turbo. Fiat even has a 2 cylinder. Ford’s 1.0 liter 3 cylinder turbo is very powerful and is considered as the best of them.

These A and B segment cars are popular among the young and elderly people. They’re cheap to buy, cheap to run, you can drive and park them anywhere in and around the cities. And they all come with 5 doors. And let’s be honest, around 70 to 100 hp is more than enough for such small and ultra-light cars.

I’ve got a feeling that the recently introduced new Renault Twingo (A-segment, rear engine, RWD) will become very successful. I think they’ve got a winner, I saw one last week on the parking lot of a Renault dealership. It was “corn-yellow”, sort of.

With the aforementioned cheap(er) gas and no carbon tax along with considerably, maintenance costs take a higher percentage of total cost of operation here which is why the market favors relatively simple and understressed non-turbo 1.5/1.6L subcompacts and 2.0L compacts.

Turbo engines are increasingly common here as well, but they aren’t as prevalent, particularly in the B-segment. B-segment cars in this country are really sold primarily on low selling price as much as anything else, and if buyers are prepared to spend a little extra in this class, they’d typically rather have more features (cruise control, etc.) than a more complex and expensive engine. We do get the Fiesta ST, though.

Not counting the Chevy Volt’s 1.4 liter engine, being an EV’s range extender, which is a different category entirely. It’s also in the related Caddy ELR. Yes, a 1.4 liter Cadillac (see picture).

We may see more of the 1.0 to 1.5 liter engines as range extenders, depending on how EVs continue to evolve. One school (Tesla) says just have lots of batteries for range, another school (GM) says use a range extender engine.

The range extender with the engine is really the best way to go for now, most Volt owners seldom use gas, but its there in case you need it, what GM has learned from the Volt will really show in the next generation Volt due to be unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show in January.

Do you think we’ll ever get to a point where series hybrids or pure EVs “win out”? I think both of them will probably co-exist and the next generation of cars will be more like the BMW i3 where you can have it either way. The range extended approach is obviously more flexible and makes more sense for more people, but cars like this are best suited to urban environments where charging isn’t as much of a problem and most trips are short.

I think it’ll probably become just another option to check off, and you’ll always have some people who insist on one or the other for various reasons.

Very interesting article. It is definitely true that the Chevrolet Spark is the “Spiritual Successor” to the Chevrolet Sprint much in the same way the relatively larger Chevrolet Aveo and later on Chevrolet Sonic is to the Chevrolet Spectrum and before the Chevrolet Chevette.

I agree, the Aveo was really the spiritual successor to the Metro, and really, a pretty viable economy car piece for GM, it was really the only surviving small car from the Geo period that GM kept going and it still considered it to be worth developing the Aveo, which was mostly a crap throw away car, but cheap, but that still lead to the Sonic, which is pretty damn good.

The present day successor of these would be the new Mitsubishi Mirage. Similar engine, minimalistic construction and extremely fuel efficient. Also low price and loved by its owners and hated by the so called experts.

Only in their respective size segments since the 5 Door Hatchback is 21 inches shorter than the 4 Door Sedan. In addition, Mitsubishi is an entirely different car company and competing from GM/Chevrolet/Isuzu/Suzuki/Daewoo which its not affiliated with those Car Makers. Mitsubishi has nothing to do with those hypenated GM and its former alliances group.

I know that Mitsubishi is not related to GM. I am talking about the type of car per se. The Mirage has a 3 pot engine, weights under a ton, and it’s like the Metro, a car expressly designed for getting its occupants from A to B, in the most cheap and efficient way.

I had one, bought new, in 1993. It came loaded with every option available except the automatic transmission. As those who have never driven one can guess, the automatic sucks approximately half the horsepower out of the car.

Like the article says, an honest car. The kind of car that every blogger claims to be able to want to buy, but won’t buy when they become available because they’re too bare bones. Sweet, crisp, handled nicely, an absolute ball to drive. My current first generation xB is the closest I’ve come to matching the car since giving it to my about-to-be-ex-girlfriend to help her move on down the line. She was the main driver on it, anyhow.

I’d love to have one now, just to clean up, put into storage, and bring out when we get one of those high gas price spikes. Oh hell, I’d probably use it as a daily commuter. It’s about as close as you can get to a motorcycle and still have four wheels and weather protection.

Another one of Suzuki’s mistakes – not bringing it in more readily as the Swift, and then seeing to it that the American market got every update.

We had a 5 door 1993 in bright blue as an “airport car” (for nonpilots, the junk car you don’t mind leaving in airport parking for days or weeks at a time), and it was a surprisingly fun little tin can. It was an automatic, so like you said, no power, pulling into traffic was…interesting. I’ve never driven a car before where just turning off the AC was like a shot of Nitrous.

It was an absolute go-kart though. I can remember taking it to a mall parking lot in HS with friends just to run it slalom style through the light poles, it was an absolute blast, as long as the AC was off…

If it is true about the 2nd ring deletion, could explain why I have seen more XFI’s blowing blue smoke than other models. And that blue one with the sidepipes is downright cute, even if it is missing the center cap on rear wheel. And being a air-cooled VW fan, LOVE that suicide door split window!

I don’t think we ever got that engine in the Geo version, did we? Available (if rare) in the Swift though. As far as I can recall.

I can see the fun-to-drive factor might be there with the manual trans, because it’s basically a go-kart with a full body. I’d just be reluctant to drive something that small, with what passed for crash protection 30 years ago, on the highway with the brodozers and the semis. Around town it could be amusing, if spartan.

I had only one driving experience with the Metro. It was a 3 cylinder automatic. It was a test ride, considering it for my wife who prefers small, cheap, automatic and riding like a Cadillac.
After half a block I turned right on a slightly uphill side street. Then I turned around and thanked the sales man for his time.

Nice article Paul, I had no idea that these honest little cars were targets for hyper-milers. With some ingenuity and a sense of humor looks like good fun to me, more so than arranging financing on a new hybrid.

These cars are significant to me because I worked on the design of the door handling tools for the Ingersoll plant. I had that white pre-production door beside my drafting table for a few weeks.

Ya I know, I’m not exactly Colin Chapman but it paid the bills for a few years….

I guess the point that it was a more modern iteration of the Beetle is a good one. I used Beetles for years as my only car. Long after it was really cool. I tend to look at the cube, soul, and Xb as the modern beetle. Probably you need to overload a beetle with everything you own and move across the country to see that one.

Interesting to see the modifications, I can only imagine the payback period on Doug Heffron’s 1+1 conversion… Then again that is missing the point, nobody would question the payback point of someone hotting up their car to get it from the 12’s into the 11’s.

Suzuki sold a neat looking 4-door sedan here as well as the hatch versions, including a version with a 1.6L engine and awd. I wonder if the 1.3L 4-cyl non-GT would have sold better in the US? That was the most common one here, not far behind on outright fuel economy but without the ‘& nasty’ appendage to ‘cheap’ as they had things like body color bumpers and that 4th cylinder.

Regarding outright economy numbers, in the early 90s there was an economy-special version of the Honda Civic VEi that got around 60mpg in a road test, beating the 3-cyl Suzuki Swift and Daihatsu Charade. One minor drawback was the purchase price being double of the other ‘proper’ economy cars, $27k in 1993!

$27K? For a Civic? In 1993? Wow. I wonder what was done to it, and if any were ever sold to actual consumers.

I know that in the late 80’s and early 90’s Honda’s economy champ was usually the CRX HF. Being slightly sleeker and slightly smaller than the related Civic, I suppose it made the most sense for an economy special, and I think it had somewhere around 60 HP from the gas-miser eninge.

The AUD was worth roughly US$0.67 in 1993. The VEi was fairly highly specified and from memory on par with the most expensive in the range that started around $20k or perhaps a bit more, as Pete says they were dearer than the competition.

The VEi had a VTEC-E engine, which was designed for economy rather than performance, I saw something about it deactivating one intake valve at low revs for better swirl. Not that I’ve looked for them often, only when prompted by and article like this, but I’ve only ever seen one for sale in recent years.

I don’t remember an VEi Civic, there was a Civic VX for the 5th gen that had special lightweight wheels and aluminum bits under the hood and other sorcery to get around 48-50mpg, it was like a more refined comfy XFi Metro.

never saw the point in extreme measures to save gas. unless there is an actual shortage, as opposed to a price spike, you are always financially better off buying a cheap larger car. and during price spikes, they get cheaper. takes a LONG time to make up the purchase price in gas savings and meanwhile you are comfortable. that said, it’s always interesting to read about any car.

These must be fairly rugged as there sure are a lot of older ones still around. People who I have talked to who have owned them loved the gas mileage.
I have always considered them kind of a regular guy’s work commuter. They are driven for the practicality. Whereas the Prius that it is compared to is often purchased more as a statement vehicle rather than a practical commuter.

Years ago I had a neighbor friend who had an early Sprint. He said it gave him 53 – 55mpg, and was slower than molasses but a great commuter. His other car was a turbocharged 1970 Camaro Z28. Talk about opposite ends of the mileage/performance continuum.

I know a guy like that, when the last gas crisis hit he went out and bought a couple Metro’s for his long commute. The rest of his fleet are gas hogs, and he has a habit of swapping SBC for BBC when the motor gets “tired”

We already have a 2008 Yugo with single barrel carburetor non-catalyst which isn’t Yugo anymore…it became Zastava Koral 1.1 In… I can ensure you that either with the Yugo badge or with the Z badge…this car alike thing is FWD and always was…since its first release till its discontinuing… Engine was borrowed from Fiat 128 which has been manufactured by the DMB engine manufacturing company under licence. The Zastava-Automobili (car) factory continued with the import of Torino assembled Fiat Punto Mk2B as “Zastava 10” since late 2008 and after the takeover by Fiat s.p.a. Italy in 2010 the Zastava factory started to assemble the same car but as
Fiat Punto Classic! The Yugo 45, 55, 65, GX, GVX, Cabrio, Ciao, Koral>>Zastava Koral has lived almost 30 years in production with minor changes and interim badge engineerings as well as with some limited editions like with the addition of automatic transmission, PSA (Peugeot) catalyst fuel injected engines…and minor changes in the interior like the digitalized dash, comfortable front seats. The exterior has got some additions of moulded stylished plastic parts…as bumpers, spoilers, grilles etc. but those weren’t serious updates/features. Anyway the Sprint, Metro, Firefly, Cultus, Swift WAS/is a better and more reliable minicar than the Yugo/Zastava… A goal was only the price. In its last years before discontinuation a new Yugo/Zastava Koral 1.1 Litre cost only approx. 4.000,- Euros with valid MOT + reg. plates and with keys in the hand. It was the cheapest “new car” in Europe…together with the Zastava Skala 1.1 the Fiat 128’s sibling. .

I had a ’93 non-XFi for five years around the turn of the millennium, in the bright non-metallic blue – at late ’90s gas prices I could fill it up and get a 20oz Coke and change back from a $10 (and that was good for 2 weeks driving).

It had an interesting quirk – if you noticed a sewing-machine sound at idle coming off the top of the engine, you were low on oil and it was time to top up. This manifested well before the oil light came on and probably saved the engine at least once!

Also, yes it was ideal for driving a slow car fast (mine was manual). I wanted to replace it with a Swift GT but never could find one for sale when I was in the market.

Slow and cheap are two words that always come to mind. One of my neighbours on my street used to own a light blue Geo Metro for many years and then at some point it vanished. Ned Flanders from the Simpsons also drove one which was used as a joke for its lack of speed. Car safety standards have come a long way since they sold these cars.

These really were the last cheap new cars that got crazy good mileage. No fancy and complex drivetrain required. Just low displacement, cylinder count, and weight. Cheap and easy to maintain. We probably will never see the likes of cars such as these in the future, at least not in the US. You can still get cars that get close to the same mileage today, but you gotta pay when you buy and when some types of repairs are needed you won’t be doing them at home. I want that 4 door split window Beetle.

Not bad, but still off quite a bit from the Metro’s 43-52 MPG. And many repairs will require dealership programers/diagnostic equipment. And a higher purchase cost even with inflation. But you do have the advantage of better safety and probably a little more comfort.

It is true about the gas price spike in 2008 bringing all the still road worthy Metros out again. I had not seen a Geo/Chevy Metro in years(well one on the road in years) but low and behold I saw loads around the DC Metro Area along with the Ford Festiva and Aspire.

There’s an “Electro-Metro” Instructable here on how to convert one of these into a cheap electric car. (Almost a million hits!) He spent $1200 total, including buying the car. It’s way funky, but what the hell for twelve hundred bucks.

That’s one great thing about such a simple and common car, you can mess with it pretty freely and not worry about losing your shirt.

There was a local Solectria Force on eBay a few months back. It was kinda rough around the edges and needed new batteries, but was still operable – just not much juice left. Seemed like a pretty good conversion for the time and the original owner had put a ton of miles on it. The cheapo DIY forklift motor Metros are pretty cool, too… but like Paul mentioned, hopefully cars like the Spark EV will become popular enough to cause their extinction!

Great baby cars, these. Initially I was sceptical, but one drive convinced me. My aunt bought one in ’85, and passed it on to my daughter about 20 years later, with only 19,000km on it! We regularly got over 60 mpg (Imperial) out of it. Now my brother-in-law uses it as a farm runabout. Still going strong.

I almost bought the predecessor to the Metro XFi, the seldom seem Sprint Metro, which was ultra bare bones with a flat black front end, to let you know that it was the scumliner. I almost bought it off an older couple that used to flat tow it behind their motorhome, since it was stick and really light, so it had 70,000 miles rolling, but really only had maybe 15,000 real miles, the interior was really nice, it even had air?

The front was kinda of sandblasted from being towed behind a big motorhome, but they wanted a bit too much for a car I kinda thought was worth maybe $300-400 bucks at the time, truth was they were really attached to the little guy and they didn’t want to let it go, I think they wanted like $1500 for it. I did drive it, and I remember you sort of had to drive it in mild anger to really make it move, and it had no tach, just a yellow “upshift” light. It was refrigerator white.

I wonder what is the worldwide total production for this little car? It has to be up there, maybe 6 or 7 million? Isn’t it still being made in some far off land somewhere?

These were cheap, but strong little cars, GM probably should have bought Suzuki and maybe Isuzu(though I think there were laws preventing that, which explains maybe why they didn’t just do this in the early 70’s) and just put them to work on small cars for them, it probably could have learned a lot in small car teething pains for probably less than it would have cost to try several times again and again, later It sort of did the same thing with the purchase of Daewoo.

I’ve read that a “Sprint Metro” existed, but I’ve never seen one before!

Someone mentioned the Yugo up above, and I don’t see those as having much in common with the Metro, but with the black plastic front this “Sprint Metro” does bear some resemblance to the later versions of the Zastava Koral (which the Yugo was called in its homeland):

The CC effect finally visited me. Saw a Metro, 4 door sedan, missing it’s front left fender, tonight. Had not seen one in at least 10 years…previous sighting was a 2 door hatch, missing it’s hood, while it’s owner was panhandling at the gas station.

Had a rental 2 door hatch around 96-97. Actually kind of liked it. Lots of room for my 6′ 190lb self. A guy at work, hulking big guy, had a 4 door sedan, and he had plenty of room too. He happily drove it until the manual trans gave out.

I was really convinced that these would take the place of the VW Bug in the hearts of the Gen Xers. The custom painted little freedom mobiles never happened, instead they became shameful little cars that told the world the driver was just cheap. Such a shame, as they were absolutely fine little city cars. I think there were only two of them in the college parking lot.

Doing field service work in the Bay Area in the late 90’s, the Chevrolet Metro was a distinct possibility for me. The local store had them advertised for $6488, your choice of color as long as it was white. But with my lack of credit history, a car loan would have been in the 17-23% range, so no sale. But in 2000, the gas prices jumped up from $1.35 to $2.15 in short order. Glad I was done with that job soon thereafter.

My brother had a Metro for a while out of economic necessity. It served him well, as I recall. He also had a Geo Storm, which did not go so well. He tangled with a Lincoln, probably one of the first Taurus based Continentals. It did not go well for the Storm, my brother has no recollection of the moments before the collision.

I cant for the life of me figure out why they ever stopped making these. Yes, theyre slow, ugly, tinny cheap little death traps. But if your goal is to pinch pennies and miser it up, then this is how you do it. These are honest, unpretentious cars that do what they say without any dorky overpriced gimmickry. Thing is, theres no political statement or implied sense of moral superiority concerned with these cars. There’s no ‘Im better than you’ commercials implying that youre saving the world by driving one. And the gub-mint never bribed you with your own money to buy one either. Sad, because these cars would actually save you money if you have a long commute…and they do it with proven, reliable technology that is durable and effective.

I think that eventually older models are phased out due to newer safety and emissions standards and regulations that have to be met with new features (such as side airbags). Competition is another factor along with trying to offer what consumers want in terms of appeal, latest trends and technology such as an mp3 player jack or built in GPS. Apparently it’s also bad for the economy if car manufacturers build a true low maintenance car that’s built to last without shelling out tons of money to keep it on the road.

The best looking B-segment / subcompact car right now, the Peugeot 208. Personal opinion, of course. Pictured is the 200 hp GTi, the spiritual successor of the 205 GTi. Although the new one has more electronic protection guards, obviously, it’s 2014. This is one of the Ford Fiesta ST competitors.

The French are so damn good at designing and building this type of car. And you can order them with all the goodies you can imagine. No penalty boxes. Certainly not with 200 hp under your right foot.

I’ve always thought the Metro was a great car for all the reasons laid out here, but I’ve never had the opportunity to drive one. They were all over the place here when they were new but not many have survived… or maybe they all just went to Oregon. I had kinda totally forgotten that they became a hot commodity for a moment in 2008 – along with biodiesel conversions and ZAP Zebras. What a stupid era! It’s a shame that the only way to get people interested in cars this size is as a knee-jerk reaction to “apocalyptic” $4.50/gallon regular unleaded.

In clicking through to the older articles, I was surprised to learn that the Canadian equivalent of the 1st gen Metro was still called “Chevrolet Sprint” and still carried the 1.0l turbo engine. The 3-door body from that generation was particularly good looking and with the turbo it makes a very cool counterpart to the 4-cyl twincam Swift GTi. Wish they would’ve sold those here, the Swifts were always way too rare.

Speaking of which, here’s a 1999 Swift I spotted recently – a car I didn’t even know existed. I always thought Suzuki dropped the Swift in North America after ’94, because they kept developing the Cultus/Swift platform and continued to sell subsequent models in the rest of the world (and still do)… so this is just a re-badged Chevrolet Metro built at CAMI.

And here’s the only Metro I’ve ever been a passenger in – my dad rented this car when we went down to visit my grandparents in Florida in 1992. Convertible, automatic and with A/C, so probably painfully slow. I thought it was really cool, though!! Picture was taken outside of the Elliott Museum, which had a great collection of early automobiles. I apparently had a Beatles haircut, which I don’t remember, back then: